Hi All:

I, too, can attest to how difficult it is to deal w/ the political
workings of other countries. Nine yrs ago, when we went to Kazakhstan
to adopt our 2 kids, we had NO idea at the time how lucky we were to be
in contact w/ other people who'd been there, done that, before us. Had
we just trusted our adoption agency's inept US-side facilitators (some
of whom were just 18 yr old girls, who knew nothing about what they
were doing), we'd have gone to Kaz, spent a lot of money, wouldn't
have had the proper paperwork, & would have come home w/out our kids.

Kazakhstan is a former Soviet republic, & their government still
operates the same way it did back in the Soviet days.....meaning, the
laws change daily, & NOTHING gets done w/out numerous bribes. Anyone
who works for one part of the gov't knows nothing about the workings
of the next level of gov't....unless you hand them a few crisp US $100
bills. Then they suddenly know a LOT!

Bribes got us in & out of the country in a month. Bribes paid for fake
medical reports on our kids, showing that these "diseased children"
needed to get to a civilized country quickly if they were to live any
kind of a decent life (in reality, they were perfectly healthy, & we
still have no info on their actual medical backgrounds). Bribes paid
for the lawyer for the Ministry of Education (who are in charge of
the orphanages in Kaz) to go easy on us in court, & not dispute the
adoption. Bribes paid for the judge to approve the adoption -- even
though he didn't once even look up from his computer during the entire
hearing (to this day, my husband insists that he kept hearing "woka
woka woka" coming from his computer....was he actually playing PacMan
the entire time? ). Bribes also paid off the courts to the extent
that they waved the required additional 15 day waiting period after
the adoption hearing, & allowed us to leave the city w/ our kids
immediately. The *only* people who didn't accept bribes, in fact, was
the US Embassy staff. However, bribes did pay for their quickly-issued
passports (even though their names were mangled horribly on them, due
to hurried & sloppy translations on the part of the gov't department
that did them).

We also were worried about how we'd get home after all was said & done,
since the national airline in Kazkahstan went bankrupt & folded the wk
after we arrived in the country.

A lot of people before us were ripped off, thanks to the adoption
agency many of us used at that time. The former head of that agency --
which folded shortly after we completed our adoption & came home) --
now sits in a Russian prison, for abused of the system, both here & in
the former Soviet countries in which the agency worked. Many families
sued them for taking their money & trying to "sell" kids to the highest
bidder -- kids that sometimes didn't even *exist*. Google "Yunona
adoption agency", & you can read all about the nightmares that some
people were put through. The agency director even tried to rip us off,
when we found out our daughter had a brother that, according to Kaz
law, we also had to adopt. But after I reminded him of the terms of our
contract, & informed him that I'd call every national news outlet &
spill the beans at the top of my lungs about what they were doing, if
he tried anything, he backed off -- for us, but not for a lot of other
families.

As for Nell, although I don't know her at all, I hope she manages to
wade through the morass of red tape & gov't hoops that she's being
subjected to, & gets out of the country & back to the US as soon as
possible. It's frustrating, & sometimes more than a little frightening,
to know that you're at the mercy of a gov't that makes things as
difficult as possible for foreigners.

Lin

[Posted in FML 7755]